


Jazz Elective Antipathy

by Becky_Blue_Eyes



Series: Nakama Maintenance Workshop 101 [2]
Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: Abigail is not a happy camper, Abigail is not too afraid to stop living, And Abigail likes menthol and pina colada e-cigarette cartidges, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-13
Updated: 2014-11-13
Packaged: 2018-02-25 05:25:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2610110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Becky_Blue_Eyes/pseuds/Becky_Blue_Eyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abigail Callaghan walks with murder in her heels, and sways a new dimension in her hips. Canon compliant, experimental in style, Abigail-centric. SPOILERS FOR BIG HERO 6</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jazz Elective Antipathy

**Author's Note:**

> because I low key think that Tadashi and Abigail would've had a nice student-TA relationship, and we see how that can't happen now
> 
> disclaimer: I don't own the copyrighted material within

She walks with murder in her heels, shoes staccato against the marble and polished so sweetly that the glare of onlookers blinds them back. Abigail Callaghan has nothing to be ashamed of, except for everything, and she sways a new dimension in her hips.

Her father is behind bulletproof glass, and his hands are chained to the desk and his eyes so sunken and broken that she entertains the idea of turning off her e-cigarette. But her cartridge of menthol soothes her tongue down from lashing open fifty seven wounds on her father's face, and the smoke reminds her of the portal.

Abigail slinks into her chair and crosses her ankles and beams, "Ready for the death sentence, Dad?"

He flinches and she laves her tongue against her e-cig's mouthpiece. It tastes like seared metal and hypersleep and she savors it. "You know, there's probably a bleeding heart liberal lawyer who might take your case, but then again, you're not exactly anyone's favorite right now."

"Abigail, please," and his voice breaks, and Abigail remembers when he begged her to leave the bot fighting underground. His voice shook then too, and he held onto her shoulders and shook her for being a stupid little girl playing woman in an arena where it was equal opportunity face smashings against brick walls. She lost her front teeth at sixteen from not listening to her Daddy, so who knows what else she could lost besides her peace of mind.

"Please what, Dad? Dad, Father, Daddy, Otousaaaan," and she rolls that name over her tongue, stretching arms like sickles to scrape against the charred black elephant in the room. "Please stop being furious at you, stop hating you? Oh no, Daddy," she exhales multidimensional smoke that fogs over her visor and hides the tears of a child who saved her life, "Please is not going to fix this."

Because Tadashi was her friend and Hiro's tears froze on her transportation pod and she walks like jazz, like superhero jazz because everyone looks at her as either a victim or implicit in Robert Callaghan's madness. And she loves her father because he's her father, her mentor, a stable male figure in a life filled with arrogant boys and fast women spinning away to new families and new daughters who don't smoke. He raises his hands to press against the glass and Abigail decides to TA in the upcoming term's engineering class.

She tells her father so, twisting a lock of fire dyed hair and musing, "They rebuilt that auditorium, it's the Hamada Memorial Auditorium. Maybe, if you'd stayed dead like you were supposed to," and she leans up to the glass so her father can see her shiny white teeth implants, "I'd have a better legacy to build my future off of."

And oh, how his pain fills the ache where Silent Sparrow tunneled through her life.

"I did this for you," he sobs and it's ugly, "I thought you had died, you disappeared into the flames and you could've died!"

"I TA'd Tadashi's aerodynamics classes," Abigail is fluid, shifting in her chair and the space around her like a non-Newtonian object fluctuating around a robot's dying thrusters. She makes her father work to see her, to see her alive and well and unsheathing blasters from manicured nails. "Bright boy, overachiever, we spent hours outside of class at Shizu's udon place downtown—chicken udon, you and I once tried to make that in our flat but we don't quite have the right kitchen for it. Cass Hamada does, but I doubt they can ever stomach eating udon again."

"Tadashi was an unfortunate casualty."

Abigail turns to hide the spasm of grief that dislodges the knives in her heels and cuts into her heart. Fire, so much fire, Abigail doesn't remember the fire because it burned behind her while she fell asleep in a subzero technicolor cloud.

She doesn't have to know first-hand that it would hurt, though, the cold burns her at night as anything else.

"Tadashi was my student," she whirls around and slams her fists against the glass. Her father recoils and the guards move to take her away but she silences them all with razor blades cutting so softly, so quietly, so gently against the air. She breathes, "He was our student, you were his mentor, and you betrayed him."

Her father gulps past the ozone seeping from Abigail's flight suit, and he is defiant, "I didn't kill him—"

"You just let him die," Abigail finishes for him. She tilts her head just like her mother did when she delivered her divorce papers, "And then you tried to kill his friends—your students, they trusted you—and his little brother.

"Is that not betrayal, Dad? Isn't Hiro more righteous than you, since I'm actually alive?"

Her father screams at her for understanding, and Abigail lets it dribble between her fingers like the tears she shed at a belated funeral. She never got to say goodbye, to help him, to stop Hiro from being blown back by the fire and watching firefighters drag Tadashi's charcoal body from the embers of her father's insanity. "I'm going to teach him everything I know," she mutters as she fills up her e-cig cartridge, "And I'm never going to see you again."

She watches the man behind the glass collapse, begging for forgiveness, for mercy, for a restart that Abigail knows that can be rebooted in a robot but not quite the human mind. And she's going to cry when she gets home, cry for hours and stuff her face with cold noodles and get really drunk at a dive bar downtown and call Honey at 3 in the morning and ask for help.

She's going to TA again and cut Krei from her life and pocket and take a jazz elective class and teach Hiro how to fly better than before; Abigail inhales the future and it's hot and sickly down her throat but the rocket launcher in her mind is fully loaded and she's not afraid to dash more teeth against the edge of tomorrow.

Abigail leaves without saying goodbye or looking back.

She walks with purpose in her heels, shoes staccato against the sidewalk and polished so sweetly that the sunset glows her cheeks. Abigail Callaghan has everything to be ashamed of, except she doesn't really, and she sways a new dimension in her hips.

**Author's Note:**

> idk where this came from, it started off as freeform poetry and then became Abigail absolutely owning the fact that her father is a villain and her future is going to be rough. and e-cigarettes too, because everyone has some sort of vice and Abigail is tied to plumes of some for me
> 
> anyway, I hope you enjoyed this ficlet!


End file.
